Sudanese Women hungry to study the Bible

I've wanted to start a women's Bible study in Yabus since I moved
here a year ago and today that dream came into fruition. Around 2
p.m. Katie (my teammate), Lucy (a Sudanese friend and our translator)
and I hiked down a path carrying our own stools until we came to a
nearby village where a large group of Uduk families live. Most of the
husbands of these women are students in the adult education program
on our base.

We gathered under a shade tree and I started the story of creation
using large colorful pictures put out by Global Recordings. The
women were all ears as Lucy translated for them. After covering the
first three chapters of Genesis, we went through the pictures again
and asked them to retell the stories for us. When the lesson was
over, all the women thanked us profusely and told us they've never
had teaching like this before and are eager to learn more. Katie and
I expressed that this is exactly why we've come to Sudan - to teach
what we've learned about God so they in turn can teach others,
including their children and friends.

Today I experienced the joy of doing what I know God called me to
Sudan to do. 

Home Again

This time it took two days to get back to Yabus since we flew
to Lokichoggio (on the border of Sudan in Kenya) and spent the
night there and flew the rest of the way yesterday. The Lord
answered our prayers and kept the weather dry both days we
were traveling.

As we landed in Yabus, we could see it's a whole new world
after having a few weeks of rain. It's GREEN. When we left
everything was still brown and looked like a desert. Now
there's grass growing everywhere and leaves on the trees.
With the rain came all the assortment of bugs that we didn't
have during the dry season. We've discovered that Evan is our
little bug magnet and they all bite him, so I'm spraying him
with repellent before he goes out.

Only hours after we arrived back home in Yabus, Eli had
changed into his work clothes, put on his old hat and
sunglasses, and looked at me with eagerness and excitement to
get back to work. He's got quite a list of projects he'd like
to tackle and finish before we leave to have the baby.  Our
SIM doctor, Dr. Rob Congdon, advised that we come to Nairobi
earlier than we'd planned so we might be leaving Yabus as
early as June 4th which is only a month away. Please pray for
us to have wisdom in this decision since we want to be safe.

Isaac and Evan are thrilled to be back. Isaac immediately
stripped most of his clothes off as soon as we got here and
has been running around outside happily. One of the first
things we did was run down the path to greet all our friends
who live near us. It was hard to drag Isaac and Evan back
home for dinner. :)

It's still very hot and I've been reminded of how much more
difficult it is to live in the bush and be pregnant. Please
pray for daily strength for me. I'm trying to take time to
rest in the middle of the day which boosts my energy for the
rest of the afternoon.

We're glad to be home and look forward to sharing more fun
stories and experiences with you over the next few months.

Lorry

One of the common sites during the dry season are trucks rolling into town. The roads haved dried up and a fresh flow of goods like sodas, rope, coffee, cooking pots, clothes, shoes, bicycles, and visitors come into town. The trucks don't like to return to the towns up north empty so they take a valuable commodity: bamboo. Here is a truck laden with bamboo, crossing the river. As soon as the rains come in May, we will see the last of the trucks return north and will do without until January.

Our Family Vacation at Turtle Bay

We just got back from four days on the Kenyan coast in the warm Indian ocean. The hotel where we stayed was all-inclusive so we could eat, drink, and play to our hearts' content. Coke floats and milkshakes by the pool, long walks on the beach at low tide exploring tide pools for fish and shells, helping release two giant sea turtles back into the ocean, windsurfing, and spending every waking hour in the water is how we spent our days. We're now back in Nairobi finishing up our remaining business before we fly back to Sudan.

Fun in the pool

The windsurfer

Playing on the beach

Fun in the river

Isaac and donkey

Eli teaches Evan to saw

One more step toward opening our school

Our Secondary school was in great need of desks so with a solid design from Roger England, we trained a few men in the measuring, sawing, nailing, and building of these desks. Each desk is designed to accommodate three students. Here are a couple pictures of us making the desks in one of our classrooms.

Aunt Phalice

One of the newest additions to our team is “aunt” Phalice. Hailing from Washington State, Phalice has come to spearhead the Secondary School project. It is such a blessing to have her caring spirit, determination to succeed, and Scrabble prowess. Here she is enjoying a cool dip during the afternoon heat with our boys.

Meet Roger

Every once in a while you get to meet someone who makes you stand back and simply say, "wow". Roger visited during the month of March and I got to work with him almost every day. Knowledgable about most everything, I got to see him work on a water pump, doors, windows, a concrete slab, goat jerky, whittling, eating peanut butter, gardening, drilling rock, framing, and that was just the first week he got here. Enjoy this classic picture of Roger and his chickens.

Solar water pump

One of our main concerns during the dry weather is having enough water for construction, drinking, washing, and cooking for our homes. Our solution at the moment is an in-ground pipe connected to a solar pump. The pump is able to run off of a solar panel so it works only during the day. Just about anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. However, with a little creativity and dogged determination by visitors Roger England and Mike Lander got the pump to work. You can see Mike drilling holes into a Gatorade can to make a filter for the pump.

In Memory of Dr. David Masters:

We received a message on our satellite phone early on April 1,

2008 that Dr. David Masters, an English doctor and SIM-Sudan

colleague, had passed away in the night.  He and his wife, Irene,

have been stationed in Doro, Eastern Sudan, an SIM base only

3-hour drive from Yabus.  They've been part of a large medical

ministry team there.



This couple recently joined the SIM-Sudan team in January of this

year but they were among our most experienced missionaries.

Dr. David and Irene spent 19 years serving in Congo and then 19

years serving in England.  They arrived in Doro on February 4, 2008.



An hour after hearing the news, our SIM Yabus team drove to Doro

to encourage our colleagues and attend David's funeral at 4:00 pm.

Doro is home to the Mabaan tribe and the service was conducted

by several Sudanese church leaders.  Several people gave testimonies

of their friendship with Dr. David, a colleague nurse sang several

English hymns and another SIM missionary closed the service with a

call for the Mabaan people to follow Dr. Masters' example of pouring

his life out for the furthering of God's kingdom.  The day before he died,

Dr. Masters rode his bicycle over an hour away to visit a village, taking

care of their sicknesses and sharing the love of Christ.  



Please keep Irene and the Doro team in your prayers as Dr. Masters

will be greatly missed. 

Goat Jerky

I guess I have adopted the motto that I will try anything once in Sudan.

We are on a "gorge and fast" routine when it comes to meat. We usually buy a goat every couple months and then we feast. However, meat does not keep well, so we have to eat it all in one day. A visiting "mohandis" or handyman suggested that we try to make some goat jerky. Hmm, I hadn't thought of that before. But, as stated above, we should at least try to make some, right?

We flavored the meat with black pepper, salt, and sugar and then laid the pieces out on a bamboo rack to dry. Within minutes we had 4 hawks circling around our meat, just waiting for us to turn our backs. A little chicken wire and a metal bowl to reflect the sunlight did the trick, and our meat dried extremely quickly in our 110 degree heat.

The verdict: we have a lot of uneaten goat jerky.

February Highlights

During the month of February, our good friend Phil Greene came to do some preliminary work on our new Yabus Bridge and to experience a taste of our lives here. His visit was a huge encouragement to our family and we had some great times together. Below is a short album of his weeks here in Sudan.

Not your typical school

We are not your typical school. Most of my third graders are married and with children. We are doing something called an accelerated learning program so we teach two grades every year. Last year these students completed first and second grade and this year they will finish third and fourth. We will take them through 8th grade. I am in charge of teaching science and Christian education. We are working our way through the Gospel of Mark for Christian education and just finished a competition on who could make the strongest compressed dirt block for science.
Here is a picture of Stephen and Jonah with their prize. The blocks are all lined up and drying. I think I'll drive the truck over them to see which one is the strongest. Who said school isn't fun?!

The Beginning of the Bridge

Phil and I go way back. Trombone buddies was how it all began, actually. We went to high school together in Kijabe, Kenya and played trombone in our school band and Jazz band. Who knew that ten years later he would volunteer his time to be the head engineer for a bridge that we desperately need in Yabus? The two weeks he just spent with us in early February flew by as we surveyed potential sites, found one, and began putting stakes in the ground to begin digging.

One of our main concerns is that no one has ever seen a bridge like this before. It's a bit like getting on an airplane when you had never seen one before. Not exactly something you think is a good idea. Phil addressed this issue by making a model out of bricks we had lying around, some string, and pieces of bamboo. Hopefully this will help ease people's minds. We'll see.

The plans are drawn, the site picked out, and the Phil is willing to come back when we get approval for the bridge. Please pray with us that this bridge will get approval from the government and be embraced by the community.

Meet our Entire Team

Recently all of those working in Sudan with SIM met together in Kenya for 5 days of fun, prayer, Bible study, eating, and re-focusing for the year. This picture communicates a lot. Represented here are people from Ethiopia, Wales, New Zealand, England, Kenya, Canada and America. Some are newborn and some are...experienced. But what a terrific and stretching time it was as we grew to know each other and heard what the past year has been like for each other. A new year is ahead so please continue to pray for the peace of Sudan to hold and the love of Christ to be share honestly and faithfully through our lives.

Evan and his friend Mary, share a plate of food

Celebrating Uduk style

Just a week before we flew out of Yabus, we joined two families in celebrating the birth of two children. When babies are born in the Uduk tribe, they stay inside their hut for 6 weeks. Once they're 6 weeks old, their parents take them to church to dedicate them to the Lord and the rest of the day is full of fellowship and feasting.
These two families are very good friends of ours. We spent the afternoon drinking lots of tea and coffee and eating. The menu included fish, chicken, pork, rice, lentil soup, and kisra (which is a large flat sour bread made from sorghum.)That was the day Isaac shocked me by eating a whole plate of kisra and soup by himself!
We feel so privleged to have friends like these and to be learning their culture and ways of life.

Some of our friends who work on the compound

Our donkey thinks he's part of the family

Keeping cool the fun way

A creative twist to breakfast